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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24473659">Ashes to Ashes</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluorescentgrey/pseuds/fluorescentgrey'>fluorescentgrey</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 02:27:29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,176</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24473659</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fluorescentgrey/pseuds/fluorescentgrey</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jaskier does a favor for a stranger.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>135</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Ashes to Ashes</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_crow/gifts">blue_crow</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Jaskier’s band at the time was bad. Really bad. They were never quite in tune, or in time, and the singer, who could sing rather well when he wasn’t on brain-melting amounts of quaaludes, was usually on brain-melting amounts of quaaludes, leaving Jaskier himself to take over vocals more often than not. He wasn't exactly bad but he wasn’t exactly good, either, and his voice was too high to fit with the key of most of their songs. He himself was proud of his soaring tenor, but it wasn’t exactly a flex outside of the men’s choir he sang with on Wednesday nights. Anyway, they only ever played at one bar, and by the time all the members of the band arrived from their assorted odd jobs and gathered themselves enough and waited for their girlfriends to not show up long enough to finally say fuck it and go onstage, it was usually two in the morning and there were about six people left in the bar, two of whom were passed out. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">On the pivotal night, there were seven people left in the bar, three of whom were passed out. One of those passed out was the singer, who was collapsed in a chair by the stage, snoring loudly enough to occasionally be heard over the feedback. The additional patron was a large and shadowy figure at the dark edge of the bar, pounding Guinnesses like water. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Jaskier could have tried to pitch his voice down and sing lower than his natural register, but it felt like having an itchy mask on. He sang the songs high and clear, even though it made him sound like he was doing karaoke, floating over his own guitar and the bassline like a hawk buffeted on clueless winds. By this point, being almost thirty and playing in a band this bad and singing in the men’s choir with a bunch of charming gay retirees and working at the cell phone store in the strip mall and living with three roommates in a collapsing ranch house infested with silverfish, he had approximately zero remaining shame, so he went to the bar and ordered a Long Island iced tea. He really wanted a better look at the Guinness drinking guy, because he'd looked from the back of the room like the roughest conceivable trade. Indeed, he was. He was practically broader than Jaskier was tall, and he had bright blue eyes. Blessedly, he flagged the bartender. “Put his drink on my tab,” he said. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You don’t have to pretend to like the band,” Jaskier told him. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I didn’t,” said the guy. “I liked your singing.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I’m not usually the singer.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Yeah, I could tell. You sound like a medieval bard.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Maybe a past life thing.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Maybe,” said the guy. “Want to get out of here.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Jaskier chugged the Long Island iced tea in three gulps. The guy paid his sizable tab with, surprisingly, an AmEx card. Then they were outside, where it was raining. “You can put your guitar in my truck,” the guy said. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Jaskier did, but he asked, “Should I, um, put myself in your truck, are we going somewhere, or…” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I need a favor first,” said the guy. “Do you mind?” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“What kind of favor?” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You’ll see.” He must have noticed Jaskier’s hesitation. “I’m not going to kill you. I’ll give you a third of the bounty.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“The bounty?” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The guy ignored him. He headed down the dirt road away from the bar, toward the woods. Jaskier followed him out of pure curiosity, and, also, a longstanding Little Red Riding Hood-esque fantasy about getting railed in the forest. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“What’s your name, anyway,” Jaskier called ahead. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Oh, did I not say?” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You didn’t.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“It’s Geralt.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Geralt. I’m Jaskier.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I know. The bartender told me.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You asked her for my name?” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Geralt turned around with a look, as though he was shocked and disappointed that Jaskier might read sexual intent out of such an action. He just said, “Hm.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Where are we going,” Jaskier asked, stumbling over rotten logs. He had come from work, so he was wearing his second-best pair of loafers, which did not give him good traction on all the mud and moss. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Swamp,” said Geralt. “Up here.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Okay, Mister One-Syllable Answers… why are we going to a swamp?” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You’ll see.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He would have walked right into it had Geralt not stopped him with an arm thrown across his chest. The single point of contact was like an electric shock. He wondered if he ought to talk to a therapist or something about how sexually excited he had gotten simply by the act of following a strange man into the woods. Maybe this was weird. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It was quite dark, except for the moon. The forest ran up to the edge of the bog and then it seemed to thin by increments into dead trees and hillocks standing against the murky water and the cloudful sky. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“It’s really pretty,” Jaskier said, trying to surreptitiously scoot closer to Geralt. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Sing something,” Geralt said. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“What?” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Sing something,” Geralt told him again, in a tone that brokered no further questions. “Sing that last song you played again.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The last song they had played was a bad cover of “Champagne Supernova.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Wait, why?” Jaskier was confused. “If you really want to hear me sing, you know, I could do ‘Nessun Dorma’ or something…” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Geralt looked heavenward as though for strength. “Sing whatever you want. I don’t care.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Why?” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“What?” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Why here?” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You’ll see.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I’m kind of tired of being told I’ll see, when you haven’t — ” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“It’s a little hard to explain,” Geralt said. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Whatever,” Jaskier told him. He sang Bowie’s “Ashes to Ashes.” That was nearer his register, and he was always bothering the band to learn it, but the singer, when not knocked out on ‘ludes, had a controlling ego. Usually he just sang like this in the shower, or in his car, before he had totaled it. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He had nearly gotten to the first chorus when he began to be aware that they weren’t alone. He turned to Geralt, who had produced a massive fucking knife from somewhere. “Keep going,” he hissed. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Jaskier did. He put maximum theatricality into every note, as though this were going to be the last performance of his life. He would be lying if he said he did not appreciate the way his voice sounded against the woods and the bog, soaring over the long clearing, swallowed in the still, silent water. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">When the creature finally emerged from the darkness, when he at last saw it, somewhere in the middle of the “you better not mess with Major Tom”s, he could hardly keep singing, because he could hardly stop screaming. Luckily, it didn’t take Geralt very long to cut its dominant head off. When he had done that, the other heads collapsed back into its oozy flesh, like bubbles popping, and the corpse slid limply back into the water and disappeared. Geralt wrapped the dominant head up in a canvas bag, then crouched and rinsed his hands, which were smeared with a greenish ichor that Jaskier supposed was blood. “You’ll get leeches,” Jaskier warned him, feeling like he'd been hit over the head with something. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Hm,” said Geralt. They walked back through the woods toward the truck. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“What the fuck was that,” said Jaskier at last. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“It has many names.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Okay, you cryptic fuck.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I’ll drive you home,” Geralt said. “Give me your Venmo and I’ll send you your cut when I get it. Should be tomorrow.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“How do I know you’ll give it to me?” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I guess you don’t,” said Geralt. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Why don’t you come to my house,” Jaskier suggested; dear god, how was he still horny? “And we can go get it together tomorrow.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Geralt turned. An owl called from somewhere, and a fisher cat screamed. “Hm,” he said. </span>
</p><p class="p2">--</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He instructed Geralt to park around the corner from his house, knowing he would never live it down if they were caught. They walked through the puddles of wet streetlight. Geralt had left the head in the car, but there was some of that ichorous green stuff smeared on his pants and boots. “You can use my shower,” Jaskier said, hoping he would take the meaning that he could use more than that. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Hm,” said Geralt. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">They crept through the dark hallways in near-silence, on tiptoe. In Jaskier’s room, a glorified closet, Geralt took off his outer layers, including the knife belt Jaskier somehow hadn’t noticed, which he smartly hid under his leather overcoat. Jaskier put his guitar back in the closet and hung up his wet jacket. When he turned around Geralt was watching him. “Actually, I will use your shower,” he said. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">They went together down the hall to the bathroom. As usual, everything was spattered with toothpaste and powder foundation, and there was a pubic hair on the toilet seat. Jaskier remembered one of his mother’s favorite aphorisms — “If you want something done, you have to do it yourself” — and started taking his clothes off, starting with his sodden wool socks. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">Geralt just stood there looking at him. At last he seemed to get it. “Hm,” he said.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“You owe me.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I’m giving you a third of the bounty.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I have three roommates,” Jaskier confessed. “This is the only option.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">It was a minor miracle that they both fit in the tiny shower, and it was a major miracle that there was enough space for Jaskier to get to his knees, where he was obliged to suck on the head of Geralt’s cock while he jerked the rest, not being able to get much more in his mouth. By the time Geralt finished and, with extreme awkwardness, they changed positions, the water was running cold, not that it mattered, because Jaskier’s entire body was burning with a lot of things at once: shame, rage, arousal, Geralt’s burning hands on his hips, Geralt’s hot tongue up his ass. Eventually he came all over the tiles and didn’t bother to clean it up to spite his roommates for using all the hot water, and they dried off in silence and crept through the dark halls to Jaskier’s room, awkwardly maneuvered against each other in order to fit as much as was feasible in the minute twin bed, fell asleep immediately. </span>
</p><p class="p2">--</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">He woke up because Geralt was tapping his face. “I think your roommates are awake,” he said. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">They went out the bedroom window into the needling rain and walked around the corner to the truck. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Who are we getting this bounty from,” said Jaskier. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“It’s a division of Animal Control,” Geralt explained. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Why can’t they just give you a paycheck?” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“It’s complicated.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Do you take pride in how thoroughly you can not answer every single question I ask you?” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The only question he had really answered, Jaskier figured, was “Can I suck you?” Which, that was an easy one. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“How do you think people would react if the government said, I know things are bad right now, but by the way, we need your tax dollars to hire an elite force of monster hunters, because, by the way, monsters exist. In numerous varieties! And most of them cannot be killed except with special training — which, we’ll also need your tax dollars to develop and provide. What do you think would happen?” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“That’s the most you’ve said to me this entire time,” Jaskier noted. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“And you didn’t answer the question.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">God damn it! </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">The Animal Control headquarters was not far down the highway from the neighborhood where Jaskier lived. They pulled around the back of the building, and Geralt went in through an unmarked door, carrying the head in its dripping canvas bag, while Jaskier waited in the rain in his wet coat. He would not entirely have been surprised if Geralt had come out with a handful of gold bars, but it was just a wad of twenty-dollar bills. “Three thousand,” he said. “They really lowball around here.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Then why do you work around here?” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Because I like it,” said Geralt. Then he had to start counting out Jaskier’s cut all over again. “What are you going to do with the money,” he asked when he handed it over. </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“I don’t know,” said Jaskier. “Save it.” He already knew the guitar pedals he was going to spend it on as soon as he got home. “So,” he told Geralt, “see you around?” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Yeah.” Geralt tried an expression on his face that Jaskier realized belatedly was an attempt at a smile. “See you around.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“If you ever need me to sing again,” Jaskier said, realizing he sounded desperate, not really caring, “I’ll be at that bar.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Alright.” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“So I’ll see you?” </span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">“Hm,” said Geralt. But it was rather a happy <em>hm</em>. A <em>hm </em>of possibility, or maybe this was wishful thinking. Jaskier watched him get in the truck and drive off. He watched the truck until it disappeared over the rise down the road. Then he walked home through the dark woods.</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">---</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">--</span>
</p><p class="p1">
  <span class="s1">-</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>this story is dedicated to <a href="https://blue-crow.tumblr.com/">eddy / blue-crow</a> in exchange for their donation to the <a href="https://www.nwcombailfund.org/">northwest community bail fund</a>. i'm doing <a href="https://yeats-infection.tumblr.com/post/619595561119711232/yeats-infection-yeats-infection-ok-everybody">an ongoing fundraising drive for organizations supporting racial justice protestors</a> across america right now. if you'd like to take part, and i hope you will, please give and message me with proof (on tumblr or at fgreyfx @ gmail) and i will write you something.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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